The Road I Chose
by Tasting Raindrops
Summary: Finley Cohen's just moved back to Forks after living in Texas for several years. When she returns, she meets a guy who seems instantly taken with her... She's never been in love before, but she's about to find it. R&R please!
1. Preface

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the Twilight Saga. It's all Stephenie Meyer's. Any of the characters not in the original series, however, are mine. Unless I state otherwise, but as of right now they do belong to me._

**Here is a better summary for _The Road I Chose_:**

Finley Cohen didn't know what to expect when she returned to Forks, Washington after living in Austin, Texas for five years. She thought that maybe she might meet one or two friends, if she somehow managed to work up the guts to talk to anyone. Or, perhaps she'd join the high school tennis club.

She certainly did _not_ anticipate what was going to occur.

Finley didn't think she would ever meet a guy who claimed to love her, let alone anyone who would remotely like her. She never dreamed that she would willingly set out to sacrifice herself for someone she cherished.

And it never crossed her mind that she'd be put in the situation of having to choose between life and love.

But, as fate would have it, it did happen.

**I was trying to be dramatic, but I think I might have overdone it…. -sheepish smile-**

**Anyway, this summary will probably be updated and changed throughout the course of writing this story, so bear (I hope that's the right version of the word, please let me know if it's not!) with me. Hopefully it will change for the best. Right now I'm just trying not to give too much away outright.**

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_Preface_

Life is tough. It doesn't even try to make things easy for you. If anything, life purposefully throws stuff in your face to distract you with one problem while it goes off and wrecks total havoc for you to find the remains of later. Life may appear easy and welcoming on the outside, but it's like an adorable puppy at a pet store. It looks at you with those big, hopeful eyes, tempting you to give in and buy the cute little thing.

Only after you've taken it home and it's peed all over your carpet floors and ripped out the stuffing in the pillows your grandma made do you realize that you got way more than you bargained for. And now you're in way over your head, and it's too late to turn back. Yeah, that's the story of my life. But trust me, my life is nothing like you've ever heard of before. It's the road I chose to take – the one not taken.

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**I know this was extremely short! Once again, please bear with me! The next chapter is _much_ longer and definately makes up for it, I hope. I just didn't think that they belonged in the same chapter, so I made them separate.**

**In case you didn't pick up on it, this story is kind of, very loosely, based in a way off of the poem by Robert Frost (I about said Jack Frost, whoops) called _The Road Not Taken_. I am aware that this is an extremely popular and famous poem, so I'm guessing that there are lots of FanFiction stories with the same or similar name. I didn't actually look to find out. I liked the idea of basing the title and chapter names off of poems, so that's what I decided to do. So, here is _The Road Not Taken_ by Robert Frost in case you are unfamiliar:**

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  
And sorry I could not travel both  
And be one traveler, long I stood  
And looked down one as far as I could  
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,  
And having perhaps the better claim,  
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;  
Though as for that the passing there  
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay  
In leaves no step had trodden black.  
Oh, I kept the first for another day!  
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,  
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh  
Somewhere ages and ages hence:  
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—  
I took the one less traveled by,  
And that has made all the difference.


	2. Chapter 1: A Passing Glimpse

**Okay, here is the actual first chapter to _The Road I Chose_. I hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the _Twilight Saga _by Stephenie Meyer or the poem _A Passing Glimpse_ by Robert Frost.

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_Chapter 1 – A Passing Glimpse_

Tap, tap, tap.

"Ugh," I groan and pull the quilt up over my head, trying to drown out the sound of the rain.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

_Shut up…_ I think exasperatedly.

Tap, tap.

…_please?_ I add in a nicer tone.

Tap, tap, tap.

_Fine, you win._ With a sigh, I throw the covers back and sit up. My bedroom is pitch-black, the only light source coming from the digital clock on my bedside table. Its glowing red numbers declare the time to be 3:46 A.M. Lovely. I still have way too much time on my hands before it's late enough for me to have an excuse to leave the house, and if I so much as open the door to get out of my room I will inevitably wake up Mom. Then she would be cranky the rest of the day, and no one wants that.

Slowly, I swing my legs off of the bed and set them on the cool, hardwood floor, trying not to make any noise. The floorboards creak as I tiptoe to my desk across the room, making me wince. _Dang it, why did I agree to take the attic room right above the master bedroom? Who in the hecksoms convinced me that that was a smart idea?_

I carefully sit down in the desk chair and drag my laptop in front of me. I pull open the top and press the power button, praying silently that I left the volume on mute. The loading screen comes up, momentarily blinding me with its bright screen, and thankfully no noise comes from its speakers. The only sound comes from my slow breathing and the gentle werr of the laptop starting. And, of course, the pattering of rainwater falling on the roof, only a few feet above my head. Relieved, I wait patiently for it to boot up. My laptop is relatively new, so it takes hardly any time before it's ready to go. I bring up the web browser and type in the websites I look at daily, checking to see what's new. Besides an update for a summary of a new book coming out in three months, there's nothing to hold my attention for more than fifteen minutes.

Now out of online entertainment, I puff up my cheeks and lean back, which causes my chair to squeak, of course, startling me and making me release my breath with a giant whoosh. Bored, I shut the laptop back down, close it, and swivel around to look at the rest of my room. My eyes have now adjusted to the lack of light, and I can make out vague silhouettes. There is my bed, at the end of the room under the area where the ceiling comes down diagonally, the soft butterfly chair in the opposite corner with the stacks and piles of books scattered over the floor in disarray, the dresser with even more books lined up against the wall. I look down at the floor and find even more books shoved out of the way along the walls and in corners. It's impossible to see my room without it being painstakingly obvious that I'm a book lover. And I make no attempt to hide it.

I huff out a breath and gingerly walk back to my bedside table, pull open the drawer, and take out my much-adored book light.

"Hello, there, buddy," I breathe, and then crouch down on all fours to crawl along the floor using the little light to help aid me in hunting for a suitable book to read. The floor is cold where my already freezing hands and toes touch it, and there are several instances where I poke myself against the pointy hardbacks' corners. When I accidentally knock a thick paperback off of a particularly tall heap with my elbow, I halt, suspended on one hand and one knee, holding my breath. I can't hear anything over the rain, which, mercifully, seems to be dwindling. As soon as I'm confidant that I am still the only one awake in the house, and my muscles are protesting too much for me to resist, I continue my quest.

After several minutes of hushed rummaging, I finally selected a book. It's one of my favorites, a collection of poems by Robert Frost. Not even bothering to get up, I rest with my back against the wall and flip through it, perching the book on my knees. As I'm turning from one well-worn page to the next, pausing to read the more familiar ones, the ones I would read during hard times, a specific poem catches my interest. It's titled _A Passing Glimpse_. Whispering, I read it aloud.

"I often see flowers from a passing car  
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back  
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;  
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt-

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth-  
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind  
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives it glimpses only to those  
Not in position to look too close."

After I finish reading, I pause, sitting in silence. I just continue to stare at the page, skimming back over the words, wondering why in the world _this_ particular poem seems to stand out right now. I go through the poem three more times before I realize that I am in fact hearing nothing. It's stopped raining.

Reluctantly, I grab a bookmark waiting expectantly on the ground by my feet and place it to save the spot of the poem. Then I get up, limbs stiff from sitting in a tight ball on the firm floor, and climb back in bed. I gratefully stick my clammy feet under the quilt and rub them together, trying to create friction and warm them. A moment later, I'm drifting off to sleep, the last stanza running through a film loop in the back of my mind: _Heaven gives it glimpses only to those not in position to look too close._

**HIH**

In the morning, after I wake up, I just lay there in bed, letting my fingers find their way over to my quilt's frayed edge and trail back and forth across it like I usually do at night to help me sleep. I don't know how long I rest there, but eventually I decide to lift my face up out of my pillow and look at the clock. It's still a little earlier than I wanted, but, what the hay, I might as well get up now.

I sit up, stretch my arms up over my head, and yawn before getting out of bed and going down my own personal staircase; instead of having a door to my room, I have stairs that lead up to it from the second floor. I stumble along the hallway, still partially asleep and bleary eyed, and down the other set of stairs and then into the kitchen. I'm so out of it that I almost walk straight into Dad, who's slaving over the stove, but I manage to swerve around him at the last second and make it over to a chair at the table.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," says my mother's all too chirpy voice from beside me at the next seat.

"Ugh, don't say that," I mumble. "Mornings are never good."

Mom laughs at my expression. "Why, on the contrary, Finley," she explains, "I'm sure they are good. They are the start of a brand new day, full of possibilities."

I widen my eyes and put on my 'thinking eyebrows,' so Macy calls them. "But they're the ending of a night full of dreams where absolutely anything can happen."

Smirking, Mom clucks and goes back to reading her magazine she has opened on the table.

"So, what's for breakfast?" I aim the question at Dad, but Mom answers.

"Your father is making turkey sausage patties and scrambled egg whites. We weren't sure if you were going to be eating here or not, since it's Saturday, but you could have some if you'd like." She doesn't so much as move her eyes from her magazine while she speaks.

I take the opportunity to leave the house gratefully. "Uh, no thanks. I'm gonna go pick up something to eat and then head over to the bookstore or find someone to hang out with."

"You mean the one in Port Angeles?" Dad asks as he brings over two plates heaping with food.

"Where else?" I say sarcastically, and then sigh. As much as I wish it not to be the case, there is only one skimpy library here in the tiny town of Forks, Washington. I would have thought, after living here for five years already, I would be used to it by now. But, coming back here after living in a much bigger city, it was hard to adjust again. In Austin, Texas, I didn't need to worry about a shortage of books, for there were libraries and bookstores around every corner. Here, though, it's the opposite, and I'm not sure how I've been able to survive these past two weeks after moving back without making at least one book stop. Thank goodness I obsess over _owning_ the books rather than just _reading_ them, or I might have ended up stuck here with utterly nothing to occupy my time.

"Wait." Dad pauses in setting the plates down on the table. "Haven't you already tried that bookstore?"

I think for a minute and groan, putting my head down on my folded arms. Now I remember. The one with the creepy hippy man. No _way_ am I going back there again. And I think if the hippy were here he would firmly agree with me.

Footsteps thud heavily down the stairs, followed by a voice thick with drowsiness. "Who's griping about what?"

"Your sister is trying to get over the fact that there are no suitable bookstores in Forks." Mom's curt tone clearly indicates that she's not a fan of the fact either.

"What are you talking about?" I can hear a chair scrape the floor in front of me. Macy must be sitting down.

Silence follows in which I am sure that my parents are giving her quizzical looks.

"Didn't I tell you guys that they just opened a new one a few days ago?"

At this, my head snaps up of its own accord. "What?" I exclaim. Leave it to Macy to leave out extremely important information and forget about it completely.

"Oh, whoops."

I narrow my eyes at her, but only for an instant. Then I leap from my chair and, with a sudden burst of energy, sprint towards the stairs to head off to my room.

"Well, we won't be seeing her 'till tomorrow," I can hear someone mumble. I grin.

Back up in my room, I shuffle through the clothes hanging up in my closet, trying to choose an outfit to wear today. The weather is muggy, savagely humid, and the clouds are threatening to cry, as per usual. I eventually pick out a pink Texas A&M hoodie– my dad went to that college – and a pair of light colored jeans. Just in case of a miracle and it somehow gets sunny later, I go ahead and wear a white, short-sleeved, V-neck under the sweatshirt. I know it's a vain hope, but I will cling to it. Someday, it _will_ be sunny here, and I am determined to be prepared when that day comes.

After I dress, I have to go back downstairs to the second floor where the bathroom I share with Macy is. I brush my teeth, splash my face with some water, and brush out my hair. Standing in front of the mirror that spans the length of the wall from countertop to ceiling, I examine myself.

I've always described myself with one specific simile: I look like someone bleached the heck out of me and then threw me in the washer when I was still young enough to fit in it. Everything about me seems washed out and pale. My pallid skin, my insipid blue eyes. But what I hate the most is my hair. It is voluminous, perfectly straight, and an ugly, mousy brown. My mom claims that it's just a dirty blond, but if that is indeed the case, it's _very_ dirty. My hair is literally the equivalent to the shade of dirt, the kind that has absolutely no nutrients whatsoever, so even weeds have an arduous task growing in it. While, on the other hand, Mom's hair the color of milk chocolate, so it's easy for her to dismiss my dilemma. She isn't the one dealing with it. I've wanted to dye my hair for forever. But Mom is sensitive to the subject of anything that alters appearances and won't let me until I'm eighteen. Even when I begged her to just temporarily dye it for Crazy Hair Day in elementary school, she wouldn't let me. So now I've got less than two more years to go.

Exhaling wearily, I leave the bathroom and jog lightly back up the stairs to grab my bright blue Converse, phone, and wallet. When I go downstairs into the living room, Macy is lounging on the couch watching an old Tom and Jerry rerun. I'm surprised to see she's also dressed and is even wearing shoes. I give her an inquiring look.

"I'm coming with you," she states simply. I chew my lip and try to hide my expression._ She's just trying to provoke me. Stay calm, think up an excuse._

"Well, I'm going to be walking there. Do you really want to march through the mud, all the way there and back?"

She evades my question and brings up one of her own. "Well, I happen to know where the bookstore is. Do you?" Macy matches my inflection perfectly.

_Darn it, she has a point._ I had been planning on just leisurely walking around and eventually locating it. Forks isn't big at all, and I figured it wouldn't take too long. But I don't want to give her the satisfaction of admitting it, so I attempt at her tactic. "Why do you want to go there anyway?"

"I just finished a book in a series, and I want to get the next one. I just got money from chores last week that's burning a hole in my pocket, and I recently got a new pair of shoes that I need to yucken up." She points to the pair of Vans on her feet that are resting up on the coffee table.

I try my last card. "You realize that most of the books there are probably not going to be very new, right?"

"The series I'm reading isn't very new, either." The sneer on Macy's face shows that she knows she won the argument. Either way, Mom and Dad very likely would have made me take her anyway.

I press my lips together. "Okay, then. Come on."

Not speaking a word, we trudge through muck along the edge of the street, Macy purposefully stomping through every puddle in our path. When she runs out into the middle of the street to hop in a particularly nasty one, I take a stab at making conversation. "So, I can see you're really trying to 'yucken up' your shoes."

Macy doesn't stop jumping around, splashing water all over her pants. "Yup," she says plainly.

I stand in place, watching her for a moment, before sniggering. "Really, 'yucken?'"

Macy cracks a smile and glances up. "Yup," she repeats. And seeing her in that position – slightly bent over, face turned up and to the side, soaked in muddy water – I can't help but laugh. Suddenly, we're both doubled over in hysterics. It takes us several minutes to breath again, and then we talk the rest of the way to the bookstore, chatting freely.

A couple hours later, Macy and I are sitting at a table in the bookstore's little café, talking about the series she's reading. From the way she animatedly explains it, it sounds really interesting. I'm sipping gingerly at my steaming hot chocolate, smiling. I'm actually glad I took Macy. When she's not being a stubborn thirteen-year-old, she's actually kind of fun to be around. I make a mental note to make an effort to hang out with her more often.

After the café, we wander down the aisles of books. Turns out, this new bookstore has quite a lot to offer.

"Hey, Finley, I'm going to go look at the manga, okay?" Macy asks from behind me.

I murmur an, "Okay," and continue examining the synopsis of a particularly thick novel. It appears promising, so I tuck it under my arm and scour a rack full of secondhand books, selecting one and returning it, over and over again, reveling in the smell of stiff paper and the waft of coffee stretching from the café. I find it extremely familiar and welcoming, like an old friend. Every time I was stressed, sad, needed to escape the crowds, or just in a funk of a mood, I would go to the bookstore and forget about the rest of the world when I lived in Austin. It's nice to be back in the same routine again.

I pick a book from the shelf with a beautiful forest on the cover and open it up to the first page. Absorbed, I glide in the general direction of the comics to get Macy. I'm so engrossed in the flawless print that I don't notice the pair of legs sticking out in the middle of the aisle until my foot caught on one, sending me sprawling forward. As I land, a sharp corner jabs into my stomach. I gasp and automatically roll away. A second later, I realize that my legs are still draped across the pair I tripped over, and I scuttle backwards, ramming into the bookshelf behind me causing it to wobble dangerously.

"I'm s-sorry," I stutter, cheeks burning, gaze lowered. I quickly reach out to grab the book I dropped nearest to me – the same one I fell on – but a deeply tanned hand shoots out and grabs it before I can. I twist my head up to thank the person, but my words catch in my throat. A guy's face, the same color as the hand that snatched my book, is only inches away from mine. His light brown eyes stare at me, slightly astounded.

"No, I shouldn't have been sitting in the aisle, not paying any attention. I'm sorry." Is it just me, or does he sound a little breathless too?

I scoot away, trying to clear my head of his warm scent. "Well, I was buried in a book. I should have been watching where I walked." I do my best to keep my voice even. I try to look at his face, to be polite, but every time I glance up he's still gawking at me. More blush creeps up.

"So we agree that not one of us is solely responsible?" I can tell he's smiling, but I don't have the guts to check. Instead, I nod and hold out my arms for the books, keeping my eyes on his hands.

He chuckles, deep in his chest, and hands me my two books. I peek at the volume he was reading, which is settled open and facedown, on the floor. All I get the chance to see is the face of a gray wolf before he stands in between my view of it. Forgetting about his gaping, I look up and regard him accusingly. He grins sheepishly and shrugs. My lip twitches, and I start to walk away.

His arm comes out in front of me, and I smack into it before I can stop myself. I open my mouth to protest, but he's already spun me around to face him.

The corners of his mouth turn upwards. "Maybe I'll see you around." He speaks softer than he did previously, and it takes me a moment to compose a reply.

"Maybe. Goodbye."

**HIH**

"You seemed like you had a very _interesting_ time in the bookstore," Macy starts in a sly tone. We're walking back home now. Well, I'm walking. Macy is bouncing around me, still hyper. Giving her sugar in the form of hot chocolate was a bad idea.

I look up sharply. "What in the hecksoms is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know what I'm talkin' about." Her pitch bounces up and down as she skips.

"I do?" I pretend to be clueless, but I'm pretty sure I know what she's getting at.

She raises her eyebrows at me. "Who was the hunk you were talking to?"

I roll my eyes, not planning on answering.

"Come on," Macy begs, "spill!"

"There's nothing _to_ spill. I tripped over him, completely embarrassing myself. He was staring at me the entire time, and I couldn't find anything to say." By the end of my mini rant, even I can tell that I sound whiney.

Macy grunts. I translate that as to mean, "Well, that's not at all unexpected."

We wait in silence for a little bit.

"What exactly did he look like?" Macy throws the question at me out of nowhere, and I answer automatically.

"He was a bunch of different shades of brown. Dark chocolate hair, coffee skin, and caramel eyes." Thankfully I stop before I go into any detail about his muscles – which, I must admit, were pretty darn _large_.

"Ooo." Macy giggles. "Yummy! How did you trip over him?"

"He was reading, sitting in one of the aisles with his legs out in front of him. I was also reading and didn't notice him."

"You must have really been into the book…. What was his name?"

"Oh." I pause. "I never asked, and he never said." _Huh. Well, maybe that will keep Macy from Googling him._

Sure enough, Macy scrunches her nose and hangs her head in disappointment. "Dang it, Finley. When you meet a hot guy, you tell him your name, he tells you his. You both exchange numbers, meet up again the next day. Go on a date, have your first kiss…"

I glare, shutting her up. Macy pouts, but doesn't continue.

Ten silent steps go by.

"Hey, you know, you guys might run into each other again," Macy says. She chuckles at her word choice, obviously trying to get me out of my signature 'funk mood', but all I can do is continue walking along, thinking.

_Maybe we will…._

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**Did you guys, whoever read this, like it? I'd love to know, so please review! Even if it is just flames. If anything, review saying, "I actually read this entire thing, I didn't click on it and immediately leave it." For short, you can just say...hmmm... How about saying, "Clouds are fluffy," to let me know you read it. Please at least do that! :)**

**I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as possible, so keep an eye out for it!**

**-Tasting Raindrops-**


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